Seminar discusses potential new partnerships
 |
|
Karl Rabago discusses the market for |
A university seminar to explore a new relationship between the Iowa sustainable ag community and Cargill Dow attracted a standing room-only crowd and generated a lengthy discussion about the meaning of sustainability.
The Leopold Center hosted a series of meetings with producer groups, agribusinesses, Iowa State University faculty and others to meet Karl R. Rábago, sustainability alliances program leader for Cargill Dow LLC, an independent joint venture of Cargill Inc. and the Dow Chemical Corporation. In addition to showing various products made from corn-based polymer manufactured at the Cargill Dow facility near Blair, Nebraska, Rabago also explained the company’s long-term goals and what it would mean to develop a fully sustainable renewable plastic.
“Our long-term goal is to make the feedstocks for our products ultimately sustainable,” Rábago said at the seminar on the Iowa State University campus. “In order to do that, we believe we must establish a connection back to the farm.”
Many companies are beginning to consider a product’s benefits throughout its life cycle – from how raw materials are raised to how the product is recycled or discarded. Although the polymer manufacturing process destroys DNA, Rabago said consumers in European markets also want the raw materials in bio-based products to be non-GMO. “These customers are concerned about the financial connection between agricultural feedstocks and the ultimate fiber or packaging product,” he said.
Rábago said that for these customers, Cargill Dow will procure (through Cargill Inc.) non-GMO corn and arrange for its processing at the corn wet mill in Blair where Cargill Dow buys its dextrose raw materials. A premium is paid for these “source offsets,” which includes a premium paid to farmers. “Sustainable means sustainable for farmers and farming communities as well,” he said. “Our success depends on it.”
Bio-based containers are being used by McDonald’s in Sweden and Austria, and for fresh foods in Italy, he said. Cargill Dow LLC also has developed Ingeo fiber from corn-based polymer, which is used by several companies in their bedding, floor covering and apparel products.